ROANOKE, Va. – Under the Trump administration, immigration enforcement has been ramping up across the country, including here in Roanoke.
One such community is around Williamson Road, which is lined end-to-end with local Hispanic and Latino businesses.
“The community of Hispanics, our community, as Hispanics… we are good people and we take care of others.” Dennis Miranda, an employee with Tienda Comiteca, said.
However, these communities and the people living in them have left many feeling like they’d rather stay at home and not risk going out in the streets to visit stores and public areas.
Luis Ayala is a store manager with La Estrella Latina. A resident of Roanoke for over 20 years, he is also an immigrant from Honduras.
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He has seen the mood from the customers that do walk into his store to pick up their groceries.
“The people are afraid, you know people are scary,” Ayala said.
Because people are not going out onto the streets to get to the stores, there are less customers buying groceries and other products.
Naturally, when fewer customers visit stores, fewer groceries are bought, which means less business for those stores.
When those stores are seeing less business, it has an effect on the local economies.
“You know, they’ve been affecting the business. they help the economy move.”
Nobody knows for sure when things are going to calm down but until then, some say they will lean on their faith.
“The only thing we can do is have faith in God have trust in him, and he only knows why everything is happening,” Miranda said. “So it’s the only thing to do is have faith in him.”
